If Ion Torrent succeeds, THEN give him a big fat bonus and a salary hike.
Ion Torrent apparently also suggested they will launch a new chip every 6 months.
Many of the obvious first markets for Ion Torrent machines cannibalize its older capillary sequencing machines.
The big question, though, is what the new ownership will mean for the tiny Ion Torrent subsidiary.
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
If Ion Torrent is going to make headway in the market, it is going to need its speed.
One big question: will Rothberg, who still serves as chief executive of the Ion Torrent division, stick around?
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
The initial Ion Torrent semiconductor chip could read out 10 million DNA letters.
Then again nothing generates hype like a horse race, and Ion Torrent has no qualms about pushing that envelope.
His team is working on many next-generation technologies that could render Ion Torrent obsolete, including one that will read a single DNA molecule.
That means that including the new machine and a computer server, the Ion Torrent PGM is about half as expensive as the MiSeq.
Most interesting new fact: Illumina apparently passed on purchasing Ion Torrent.
The promise of the Ion Torrent PGM is that it is based entirely on the kind of silicon chips the microprocessor industry has used for decades.
Keith Robison, a genetics researcher at Infinity Pharmaceuticals, wrote on his blog OmicsOmics that the long-term battle between MiSeq and Ion Torrent could be hard to call.
Now, he thinks he has found the perfect tool: a new DNA sequencing device called the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine, made by Life Technologies of Carlsbad, Calif.
If Ion Torrent fails or is superceded by another technological advance outside of Life, and you cannot tell me that such is an unlikely scenario, it will be disastrous.
This price advantage has made Ion Torrent the main competitor to Illumina, even as other companies such as Pacific Biosciences of California and Complete Genomics failed to make much inroads.
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
Life, which has managed only single-digit revenue growth despite the success of its Ion Torrent DNA sequencing division, has been on the auction block since January, when it announced it was exploring strategic options.
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
Now new entrants, like the Ion Torrent sequencing technology owned by Life Technology and the new types of sequencers being developed by Oxford Nanopore are fomenting more competition and driving costs down even further.
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The PGM uses a semiconductor chip to sequencing DNA, a technology that Ion Torrent founder Jonathan Rothberg says will allow his machine to increase in speed at a rate of 10-fold every six months.
Mr. Lucier also seems to have put most of his eggs in the Ion Torrent basket, which as any businessman small or large will tell you, may be too risky in this day and age.
At the recent Advances in Genome Biology and Technology in Marco Island, Florida, the focus was on the new, low-end machines like MiSeq and the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine, which was the subject of this Forbes cover story.
Quick recap: his new device, the Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine, is a less expensive machine that provides more limited DNA information than can be had from current devices sold by Illumina of San Diego and Life Technologies of Carlsbad, Calif.
Ion Torrent entered this market in 2010, the brainchild of biotech entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg. (I wrote a Forbes cover story about him in 2011.) Rothberg figured out how to make a DNA sequencer using semiconductor parts that would be significantly cheaper than the machines Illumina sold.
FORBES: What Does This $14 Billion Deal Mean For The Future Of DNA Sequencing?
Perhaps more importantly, this leap would fulfill the promise made by Ion Torrent founder Jonathan Rothberg, who has promised that because his device relies on the same kind of semiconductor factories used to make Xboxes and iPods its performance will be able to improve 10-fold every six months.
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